


It is a blessing to have family again

by Multifandom_damnation



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Caleb Widogast Needs a Hug, Caleb Widogast's Backstory, Childhood Memories, Families of Choice, Family Bonding, Family Dynamics, Family Reunions, Gardens & Gardening, Gen, Introspection, Pre-Stream (Critical Role), Retrospective, Team as Family
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-22
Updated: 2020-02-22
Packaged: 2021-02-28 02:53:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,978
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22836577
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Multifandom_damnation/pseuds/Multifandom_damnation
Summary: Caleb has been alone for a long time, his family dead and burned to a crisp in a fire of his own creation along with the boy that once was Bren Aldric Ermendrud. But watching Caduceus reunite with his restored family, realizing that they hadn't left him alone to rot, made him realize that maybe Caleb had a family right in front of his eyes that he had just been too blinded to see.
Relationships: Caleb Widogast & Everyone
Kudos: 80





	It is a blessing to have family again

**Author's Note:**

> Who knew that we finally got a Clay reunion and instead of writing a little something something about the new Clay siblings (who I love and adore) I'm writing something about a throwaway comment that Caleb made about family, but you know what?? I like how this turned out. The whole time I was writing the first part something felt off, and then I realized that Caleb's real name is Bren and that his parents wouldn't be calling him Caleb, so I went back and fixed it all haha. Caleb also once told Caduceus, with tears in his voice, that he used to plant green beans with his mother so that's why I chose green beans haha. Anyway, this was a really good episode, and I'm so glad that we got to meet all the Clay's (All of them!! I'm so happy!) and I hope that they all live long and happy lives. Thanks for reading, I hope you enjoy it xx

It was early in the morning, and Bren Aldric Ermendrud hadn’t been able to sleep.

Not for any reason other than the fact that he had been revising his favourite equations over and over in his head all night and couldn’t find himself able to drift off to sleep, so instead of lying in bed and staring at the ceiling and hoping that sleep came to him, he found himself at the small kitchen table before either of his parents had woken up with a book in front of him and a quill in his other hand.

Eventually, the silence was broken by heavy, laboured footsteps from down the darkened hall as his father joined him in the dimly lit kitchen, illuminated only by the lamp beside him on the table, and yawned so loudly that Bren heard his jaw crack. “Oh- Bren, what are you doing up so early? The sun isn’t even up.”

“I couldn’t sleep,” Bren replied with a gap-toothed smile. He had lost a front tooth last week, and his mother had been so proud of him for not crying or screaming while she pulled it out that she had given him a copper piece and let him spend it on anything he liked down the main street. He had spent it on a bag of mixed lollies. “I thought I would be productive instead.”

His father chuckled and ran a heavy hand down his face. “Well, I’ve got to get ready for work soon. Your mother should be down shortly. Is the water…?”

The question was left unspoken, and Bren filled in the blanks. “I boiled some already,” he said, knowing that his father was a little absent-minded in the mornings, and beamed when his father leant over to place a sloppy kiss on his messy hair.

“I can always count on you,” he said as he shuffled to the kitchen, scratching at his neck and started on making himself some breakfast.

Not too long later, just as his father had promised, his mother came down the hall, already dressed and carrying a basket on her hip. Her hair was tied up in a bun at the back of her head, and she wore her favourite gardening apron over her blouse. She smiled in greeting when she caught sight of Bren sitting at the table. “Good morning,  _ mein junge.  _ Couldn’t sleep?”

Bren shook his head and his hair fell in front of his face. With a smile, his mother reached out and pushed it back. “Too much on my mind. I couldn’t sit still any longer,” he pointed to the basket still balanced on her hip. It smelled earthy and clean, like fresh grass after a rainfall. “Are we planing today?”

Humming, his mother ran her hand through the contents of the basket and pulled out a handful of small green seeds, no bigger than a fingernail, and held them under Bren’s nose. “Green beans. We have some to shuck in the backroom as well. I think that when we’ve finished planting, you can help me pick some radishes, _ja_?”

His eyes brightened just as his father came back into the dining room with a steaming cup held in his hand. “I don’t know, Una.” he teased. “I think that Bren has to do his homework before he can go play in the garden.”

“I’ve done it all! And more!” Bren insisted. His father knew how much he hated leaving homework until the last minute. “Look at this!” he said as he held his hand out and slowly, oh so slowly, a ball of light bloomed to life between his palms and rose to drift around the room, lighting it up more than the lantern. “I learnt it this morning!”

Enraptured, his father tried to claw at it like Frumpkin did when Bren dangled a ball of yarn over the side of his father's favourite armchair, but unlike Frumpkin, his fingers passed through it harmlessly. "You learnt this just this morning?" His father asked, awed.

Nodding, Bren blushed as his mother put down her basket of seeds on the empty chair and wrapped both her arms around Bren. "I heard the town crier talk about a manufacturing issue with the new candle wicks, so when I learn about this spell I thought it would help keep you safe so you didn't have to burn the new candles. I can make four of them and have them drift throughout the house."

"How generous of you," his mother beamed as she held him close before looking up at her husband over his head. "Our boy is a genius. He'll go far when he's older. But what do you say, Leoric- does all this studying mean he can spend a few hours of good, hard work in the garden with his mother?"

Reaching over to ruffle Bren's hair, his father laughed affectionately, and Bren felt something as warm as his Drift Globe bloom in his chest. "You know what, Una? I think it does."

Bren spent the rest of the mornings on his knees in the garden with dirt under his fingernails and Frumpkin lounging in the slowly rising sun, his father leaning against the wall of their home finally dressed in his uniform with his cup of coffee with a little stronger something mixed in and his mother singing softly as she dug and plotted and watered, showing Bren how to work with a gentler hand, and Bren decided right then that he never wanted any of this to change. 

* * *

The Gorgon was one of the scariest things that Caleb had faced in a long, long time, and though he had been the one to kill it, searing away its insides and impaling it on shards of glass from the beach it had mercilessly claimed as it's own, it felt like a shallow victory. They had more important things to worry about than the death of the metal-plated, smoke-spewing boar.

Most of Caduceus's family was restored to their flesh and blood selves, and the Mighty Nein did him the wordless favour of combing though the beach for more of his relatives, intact or in pieces, but from what Caleb had heard, their heart-felt reunion felt… subdued. Almost as if Caduceus was reluctant to tell them how much he had missed them and how lonely he had been for these past long years. Maybe that would change when they were in private and away from the Nein's inevitable eavesdropping, but Caleb was very glad to see Caduceus fall into his father's affection and his mother's embrace nonetheless. 

In the dead of night, while the less sensible members of the team were busy pranking the petrified individuals at the Lawbearers alter, Caleb tried to focus on his work and heard a series of splashes, thumps, and the familiar piercing tones of Caduceus's death whistle. It was strangely relieving. Caleb never had siblings, it was always just him and his parents and his very normal cat, but he hoped that Caduceus had a relationship with his siblings as good as any other. He deserved it for all he had done.

In the background, Caleb was sure that he could hear giggling from somewhere behind him, the scraping of furniture and jingling of metal, and Fjord's familiar heavy sighing. It was customary by now. He found himself wondering when the exasperation of a half-orc and the giggling of a blue tiefling and the faint snarling of a goblin and the grumpy indulgence of a monk became customary. When did he become so acquainted with it all? When did he start thinking of them as a family?

He wasn’t sure when the others would be finished with their trouble-making, so when Nott returned to the inside of the cave from doing who knew what outside, she joined him where he was examining the collar from the Archmages Bane, shaking herself like a dog would shake the water from their fur. The last thing Caleb wanted her to do is to leave, but he called her over so he could assure her that if she did, in fact, decide to leave to rejoin her family who no doubt missed her very much, that he would not begrudge her that, and that he would always love her no matter what.

It would be hard, though, if she were to go. He would not stop her, but deep down he would miss her every single day. So while she sat before him, big yellow eyes gazing up at Caleb like he was the only light in the sky, he told her his secret, that he was so very happy to have a family to be apart of again, and that he understood that she needed to go back to make her own family complete. He hadn’t realized how true it was until the words were said. The Mighty Nein was unquestionably a family now, _his_ family now, and Nott looked up at him with a knowing expression as came to the same confusion. He didn’t need to express this to her, because she pat him on the shoulder as she stood and strolled off to rejoin the others.

But right now it was quiet. Caduceus’s aunt was tucked safely away in his amber vault and in the morning, Jester would try her best to bring her back, and if that somehow failed, they would find another way. They would revive the rest of Caduceus’s siblings, and then the rest of the family of Stone, and then all would alright. Hopefully, now that his family was back, Caduceus wouldn’t feel the need to leave them quite so soon, but Caleb couldn’t begrudge him that either. If he had his own family still alive and here with him, he would probably leave the Mighty Nein to return to them as well.

The word was foreign to him. _Family_. Was this group of mismatched people, multi-coloured and differently talented really what most would call a family? The word was hard for him to wrap his head around. Never in a million years would Caleb have thought that he ever would have considered the Mighty fucking Nein as a family, but here he was, sitting on the floor in the cave dedicated to a God he did not know, a family he had so far only met in passing on one side while the Mighty Nein ransacked and pillaged a small village on the other, and his heart so full of love that his chest could barely contain it all. 

Yes. The Mighty Nein were most certainly a family, in the strangest sense of the word.

He looked up just as he heard footsteps approaching and he recognized Caduceus’s form trudging towards him, his boots making a weird squelching noise as he did so. When he got closer, he caught sight of Caleb in the dark and waved a vague hand behind them to where Fjord was whisper-yelling about one hour and Jester was talking reverently about chaos and joining the cause of the Traveller, and he laughed, deep and booming and very familiar by now, before he collapsed on the ground and fell asleep almost instantly, exhausted and soaking wet.

Caleb fell asleep on the floor of the cave listening to a very tired Fjord try and wrangle a slightly drunk Beau and Yasha who were trying to convince him to let them sleep in the unoccupied beds in the yurts instead of the cold hard ground to no avail, to Jester talking to Nott about something too exciting and fast for Caleb to understand, Frumpkin the monkey curled up in the space between his arms and Caduceus’s loud snoring, so strong it almost seemed to shake the cave they slept in, and Caleb decided right then that he never wanted any of this to change. 

**Author's Note:**

> mein junge= my boy


End file.
